Tuesday, July 31, 2007

I'm applying for a job. Wish me luck. Of course, this means procrastination from writing application forms (why do supporting statements have to be so long? why? why??), which means an update. While watching the entire ninth season of 'Friends' and pretending to tidy the house (my PA is eternally absent - a bit more about that later). So just a very short update then. Really.

OK. Here's a question for other people who live in that ever-exciting world where terms like 'reasonable adjustments' and 'Social Model' actually feature in your conversation, especially you recently-disabled types (isn't life great when you're just learning this stuff?)... What do you do with neighbours who resent you because you use a wheelchair, which means that they have to be "inconvenienced" by, say, (very small) adaptations to outside doors? Ever since we moved to this gorgeous new almost-accessible ground flat, I have firmly believed that several of the neighbours in our block of flats are engaging in a campaign of intimidation against the irritating disabled resident. Mostly this is down to paranoia (I'm bipolar. It's nothing if not entertaining), but the little pointed comments and complaints really do start to get a bit irritating. Particularly amusing was the woman who worried aloud about her "poor plant" because my wheelchair was stored next to it. While folded up. Folded up, people! *cough* OK, calming down now. And then yesterday I realised it wasn't all paranoia, when a run-in with certain neighbours over aforementioned very small adaptations to entrances ended with comments about how inconvenient it all is*, and how I can't really be disabled because I do gardening on good days...

So, between all that neigbourly fun, and the PA who can't sort out her home life enough to come to work at all ever, and the NHS wheelchair service that won't review me for a new chair until bloody October, and the impending DLA appeal that (for which, apparently, I at least have a good case) - well, I'm a little bit on edge this week. And currently refusing to leave the house in case I meet scary people in the hallway. Still, life is generally good. I'm looking for part-time work (did I mention how long my supporting statements have to be? I did? OK then). I'm also soon to be going away as a volunteer on a young people's activity week. Yay for keeping busy. If I don't get to do something meaningful and interesting soon, I may have to take all ten DVD boxsets of Friends and dump them out of the top floor window of a far more accessible building than the one in which I currently live. Boredom. It's even less fun than Fibromyalgia.

*I was particularly amused by The Girl's response to this, which was something along the lines of "You think you're inconvenienced? Try having to get a wheelchair in and out of this building. You bitch."**

**I may have added the 'you bitch' part for my amusement. I wasn't actually there, so I can make it sound good in my own imagination. Did I mention how bored I am? I did? OK then.